The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 803

these things happen at about the same time By the time the connective tissue has broken down, you’ve driven off enough moisture from the rind to render it hard and crunchy In a 250°F oven, connective tissue breaks down for sure, but moisture loss and protein stiffening don’t occur to a great enough degree to deliver a crisp finished product So clearly, once again, we should be cooking our pork at a higher temperature, right? But hold on, dear, we got one more thing to consider Patience BUBBLE, BUBBLE We all know what surface area is, right? Take a look at a close-up of a piece of the crisp skin from the pork cooked at 375°F: Pork cooked at a steady temperature has skin that’s crisp but smooth, with little surface area See how, despite a few wrinkles here and there, it’s relatively smooth? Well, smooth objects have relatively low surface area given a particular volume, while wrinkled, bubbled, crinkly, curvy objects have a relatively high surface area given the same volume And when it comes to texture, more surface area = more crunch It’s the same ... curvy objects have a relatively high surface area given the same volume And when it comes to texture, more surface area = more crunch It’s the same ...Pork cooked at a steady temperature has skin that’s crisp but smooth, with little surface area See how, despite a few wrinkles here and there, it’s relatively smooth? Well, smooth objects have relatively low surface area given a particular